Seeing Me
by mariposa510
Summary: "The worst thing about their situation wasn't the fact that people were constantly watching them. It was that none of those people were actually seeing them." Alternate version of "Command Performance" where Alara follows orders and everyone has to deal with the consequences.
1. Chapter 1

In the episode "Command Performance," Alara makes a decision to defy orders and rescue Ed and Kelly. In this alternate version, she makes a different decision, and they all have to live with the consequences.

Disclaimer: I don't own _The Orville._ Duh.

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 **I used to think the worst thing in life was to end up all alone, it's not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people that make you feel all alone.**

 **~ Robin Williams**

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 _"Alara. Everything you've dealt with up until now is child's play. This is command. You have a choice: follow orders and accept that the crew will hate you for it, or disobey orders and go after our people. But if you take that kind of risk and you're wrong, you could destroy your career. Or worse."_

Or worse.

Those words had been playing in Alara's head on an endless loop ever since she had left Claire's office. The doctor had been clear when she laid out Alara's choices, but she had refused to give her an easy answer. Alara had walked the ship for almost an hour, playing out different scenarios for those choices in her mind. She needed to calm herself down, needed to be able to think clearly.

She stopped walking, realizing that she had subconsciously walked back around to the mess hall. Maybe a drink would help. Or at least it might take her mind off it for a few minutes. She sighed and walked through the mess hall doors.

Well, if she had hoped to forget about things for a few minutes, she had clearly come to the wrong place. Everyone stopped to glare at her as she walked in, and then clearly turned away, purposefully ignoring her. She suppressed another sigh and turned to the bar.

"Xeleyan tequila. Double." She drained the glass in one gulp and turned to face her crewmates. She briefly locked eyes with Gordon, although he looked away quickly. _Well,_ she thought, _I guess I have to start somewhere._

She walked over to the table where Gordon and John sat. "Hi. Can I sit here?"

John didn't even look at her. "Sit wherever you want, sir."

Great. This was going well. "Ok, umm, thanks." She sat, trying to ignore how they were ignoring her. And failing.

"Guys, please," she pleaded. "I had no choice."

Gordon merely looked at her before deliberately setting down his fork and napkin. "Permission to speak freely, sir."

"Yes, of course." Alara was really getting tired of this excessive formality thing. If they were trying to torture her with it, they were doing a really good job.

"You know what the most heinous thing about this is?" Gordon asked. Without waiting for her to respond, he continued. "If the Captain were in your shoes, he would have gone after you. He would have risked his career to save _your_ life. You suck. Sir." The tone of the last word was somewhere between an afterthought and an insult. It stung. But not as much as the rest of his speech did. Because he was right. Captain Mercer would not have left her behind. If he couldn't have convinced the Admiral to send the ship, he would have found another way, even if it meant risking his career.

And if risking her career were her only concern, she would have been happy to slap her hands on the table right there and announce that they would be screwing the Admiral's orders and going after their people. Claire had laid that out to her as one of her choices, and she was sorely tempted to take it. But there was still one thought bringing her up short.

 _Or worse_.

She wasn't just responsible for her own career anymore. She wasn't even just responsible for the careers of the other officers on the ship. She was responsible now for their lives. Already in her short time in command she had almost gotten several crew members killed. And that hadn't even been in a combat situation, for god's sake.

Claire had said she had to trust in her people, and she did. They were good people, and they were a good crew. What she didn't trust was herself in command of that crew. That was the biggest difference between herself and Captain Mercer. The captain would know what to do. She didn't.

She had a responsibility as acting captain to make the best choice for the safety of the people under her command. And right now, that meant she had to face up to her own abilities. If she went after the captain, she could get her entire crew captured or even killed. The Admiral knew that. And so did she.

She had been right the first time. She had no real choice.

Alara sat back and placed her hands on the table. She looked up and looked directly into Gordon's eyes. "I'm sorry you feel that way, Lieutenant. But I have a duty and a responsibility to this crew. I hate what's happened just as much as you do, but I don't have a choice. We're going back to Earth. I'm sorry."

She saw the hope fade from Gordon's eyes. He had truly thought that he might be able to persuade her, and he almost had. He looked at her for a moment before shoving his plate away and roughly pushing his chair back from the table to stand up. He glared down at her. "You're going to be the one who has to live with it, Alara. Good luck with that."

She held his gaze for another moment, willing herself not to look away. She had made her decision, and he was right. She would have to live with it, and with all of the consequences that came with it.

Gordon made a disgusted noise in his throat and stalked out. She looked over at John. He shook his head slightly in anger and disappointment and left the table as well. Alara looked around at all of the faces that had been locked on the conversation ever since Gordon asked to speak freely. Most were silent, although some grumbled under their breath. Slowly, every person in the mess hall stood up and left the room.

Alara sat at the table, alone, for several minutes. Finally, she stood up and walked back to the bar. The bartender was gone, but the bottle of tequila was still on the counter. She poured a double, walked back to the table, and sat. She was still there twenty minutes later when her alarm sounded and she stood up to begin her shift.

She left the full glass still sitting on the table.

Alone.


	2. Chapter 2

**"They have seen but half the universe who never have been shown the house of pain." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson**

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Ed stared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, trying to wrap his aching brain around the fact that this was actually happening. An animal in a fucking zoo. He rubbed a hand roughly across his face and took another swig from the beer on the counter.

His bloodshot eyes and pounding head were a reminder that all he'd had to do the past few days was drink and think about the fact that his entire life was now confined to these rooms. The irony of it was just staggering – he'd _finally_ gotten a ship of his own, been out exploring the universe, and now that ship was gone, along with everything else in his life.

Everything except his ex-wife. There went the irony again.

He sighed, picked up the beer, and headed out to the living room.

Kelly was sitting at the table, eating breakfast and playing solitaire with her back to the window. Ed walked to the couch, moved his dinner plate from last night, and sat down. His mood darkened when the first thing he noticed was a Calavon male staring in through the window opening. The man barely glanced at him before moving off, which somehow made him feel worse.

He heard Kelly's spoon clinking in her bowl, and the sheer normalcy of it sent him over the edge. From the first day that they had realized their situation, Ed and Kelly had had completely opposite reactions to the situation. Ed couldn't stop thinking about the fact that they were on display. Maybe it was because he still slept on the couch. Even when he laid down for bed, he couldn't pretend that he was just at home by himself. He found himself staring and scowling at every Calavon who walked by. He'd yelled at a couple of them, flicked off several, and even threw a beer bottle at the window once after Kelly had gone to bed.

Kelly, on the other hand, was actively trying to ignore their entire predicament. She kept her back to the window or stayed in the bedroom, doing all the things she would normally do on a day off or a vacation.

It was beyond irritating, and the cereal was the last straw.

"Hey," he called back at her, annoyed, "you wanna not do that, please?"

"What?" She snapped back at him, telling him that maybe she wasn't having as much success ignoring the situation as he had thought.

Annoyance and a lingering hangover won out. "We lived together long enough, you know I do not like listening to people eat cereal."

"It's morning. I'm eating breakfast," Kelly snipped. She turned back to the table, but continued as she picked up her coffee, "You know, you should try eating in the morning instead of drinking. It's neat."

Ed's temper flared. So far, the only thing he'd found that gave him any kind of escape from this stupid prison was drinking. So that's what he did. He'd be damned if Kelly was gonna try to take that away, too. And anyway, it's not like he was drunk… "I'm having _a_ beer."

"Yeah, at 9AM. Which, in case you don't remember is something that _I_ do not like."

Oh, he remembered. They'd had this argument more than once, but he was just riled up enough to keep going. "I'm doing something that the Germans have been…"

"…The Germans have been doing for centuries." She cut him off, rolling her eyes at him, "Yes, you love that one don't you. Well guess what, you're not German!"

He stared at her, his hungover brain unable to come up with a witty retort. Finally he settled on "…Well, you're not Frankenberry, so shut up."

Not his best work. But apparently it was enough to push Kelly's buttons.

She slapped a card down on the table and stood up to face him. "You know what, it is all coming back to me now."

What, like this was Ed's fault?! "Oh, what, Kel? What is _all coming back to you now_?"

They were both standing now, voices raising, as Kelly continued, "Us. Living together. All the things that sucked about it."

So first he was completely wrong and now she was saying he was right? His frayed nerves couldn't take it. "Yes! This is exactly what I was saying on the shuttle, do you remember, and you said no. I said we were a bad match. Ok? I am just as miserable with you as you are with me."

"Well great, finally some common ground." Kelly was definitely angry now, too, and the two of them shouted over each other, sneering and mocking.

"Some common ground between the two of us!"

"Some common ground! Thank god!"

Ed glared at her. Of all the people to be stuck here with, it _had_ to be Kelly Grayson. He scowled at her and said "I cannot believe that I finally get divorced and move on, and now I'm going to be stuck here with YOU for the rest of our lives!"

To his surprise, Kelly blinked and faltered. The angry expression fell away. It took a moment for Ed's impaired brain to figure out what he was seeing on her face.

"The rest of our lives," she repeated softly. He'd said it out loud, the thing they had both been avoiding in their own ways. The thing they both knew was likely true. They _were_ stuck here, probably for the rest of their lives. Together.

All the air went out of the room then, leaving just a feeling of hopelessness.

Ed looked down at his beer, and back up at Kelly. He met her eyes, sighed, and said simply, "Yeah." Then he turned away, sat back down on the couch, and deliberately took another drink from the bottle.

He waited to see if Kelly would push the argument. He resolutely kept his eyes focused on the hallway beyond their window. After a moment, Kelly quietly returned to the table. He heard her pick up the cards again…but she didn't finish the cereal.

Ed closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, a Calavon child was making faces at him. He scowled, sunk lower on the couch, and took a long drink from the bottle.


End file.
